


we're not so different

by poisonlullaby



Category: ATEEZ (Band), K-pop, SEVENTEEN (Band), Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Alternate Universe - Tokyo Ghoul, Crying, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Inspired by Tokyo Ghoul, ONEUS Yeo Hwanwoong, Panic Attacks, Yeo Hwanwoong but he's only mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:41:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24850975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poisonlullaby/pseuds/poisonlullaby
Summary: Ghouls are not accepted in society. Everyone knows this. Vernon knows this. San and Mingi know this.Ghouls in the music industry have to stick together.//You do NOT have to know anything about Tokyo Ghoul to read this.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 23





	we're not so different

**Author's Note:**

> I listened to "Blood // Water" by grandson while writing this!

Laughing hysterically, Vernon sat at the kitchen table not being able to hold himself up. He fell to the ground from his chair in a heap. Mingyu and Jihoon, who surprisingly wasn’t holed up in his studio, were the only ones in the kitchen with him. They looked on in confusion and mild worry as Vernon continued laughing maniacally. They had been half-asleep but peacefully eating their breakfast in their too-cold kitchen. “Uhh.. you okay dude?” The bewilderment and slight edge to Mingyu’s voice only made Vernon laugh harder if that was even possible.

A few moments passed until Vernon finally got to his feet, wiping some tears from under his eyes as he sighed happily and sat at the table again. Jihoon and Mingyu turned to look at each other warily but shrugged it off after communicating silently through their eyes. Turning back to look at Vernon, he had a solemn expression as he stared down at his bowl of cereal. Suddenly the loud scraping of a chair against tile rung in the kitchen as Vernon hastily made his way to God knows where. Mingyu gave a tiny yelp at the sudden noise and left to follow his fellow hip hop unit member. Jihoon could only look on in exasperation at the whole ordeal but figured the younger members of Seventeen had always been pretty weird.

//

Vernon found it funny, honestly. His least favorite food was cereal and to see his members enjoy it so much was funny because it tasted absolutely awful to him. He found it funny how he could smell it on them and he loved to tease his members, but he couldn’t exactly come forth with teasing them for smelling like dead fish. He would only get weird looks and suspicion thrown at him, so he’d rather avoid that.

At the same time, though, Vernon couldn’t help but feel left out. He just wasn’t like them. It wasn’t just about the taste of cereal, something as trivial as that was stupid to fret over. He was upset that he couldn’t understand them nor **_be_** like them in all senses of the word. Vernon had cried one too many times over things like this, so he quickly made his way out of the kitchen before he could come off as even more strange than he’d already come of as when he couldn’t control his dumb sense of humor and laughter.

—

Ateez could barely get a break, what with their popularity slowly increasing each passing day. Mingi and San had been getting closer over the course of their tightly packed schedule. Mingi didn’t like dealing with Wooyoung’s jealousy but figured it was for the best, Wooyoung couldn’t be there for San the same way he could. He wasn’t trying to sound like he was better than Wooyoung, but some things couldn’t be helped.

It was one night when everyone was doing their own thing, he had walked in on San in one the deserted dance practice rooms, hoping to get some practice done without any interruptions. He was gobsmacked at what he had seen, but before much, San had run out of the room and out of the KQ building. Mingi shook his head, snapping out of his state of shock and was soon dashing out the door like a madman. After an hour of searching in the rain, Mingi stumbled upon San who looked so lonely sitting in the dark, cold alleyway sobbing his heart out. It broke Mingi’s heart to witness his _hyung_ breaking down in the middle of that dingy alley. He walked closer, stepping in puddles of rain, flitting his eyes around at the strewn trash and rats scouring for food. A loud startling crunch echoed in the darkness as he looked down at his foot that had stepped on a broken soju bottle. A quiet whimper from San made him snap his head over at his broken _hyung’s_ direction. Mingi, with a bated breath and trembling hands, made his way towards San and crouched in front of him. He wouldn’t look at him.

“ _Hyung_ , me too.” At breakneck speed, San look up and drilled his gaze into Mingi.

San sat there against the wall folded into himself into the tightest ball as humanly possible, staring at his _dongsaeng_ in shock at what he saw.

—

A few weeks flew by after the incident in the kitchen, which was long forgotten. Seventeen had been busy with comeback preparations and having just finished dance practice after ten hours, they were all tired and sweaty. Vernon was sitting outside Jihoon’s studio waiting to record his parts for their new song, but something had caught his attention. Currently, only Jihoon and Mingyu were in the studio while the other members, including himself, were in the little waiting room outside of it. He started giggling quietly to himself while staring at his members, they smelt so bad.

Maybe it was because they were all unusually exhausted or Joshua’s tone just really set him on edge, but what happened next made Vernon succumb and fall under a sense of **_protectprotectprotect_**. “The hell you laughing at? Don’t be disrespectful!” Joshua snapped. Vernon immediately shut his mouth and became serious. He glared at Joshua, but then a playful smirk began to play on his lips. “I’m not doing anything, **_Hyung_**.” Vernon could feel all his member’s eyes on him as he snarled out that last word. “Hey! Chwe Hansol, don’t talk back like that! What’s gotten into you?” Seungcheol scolded him in an authoritative voice which only served to both provoke and terrify Vernon even more. Too many memories swam in his mind of aggression and his little sister’s body, mangled and near-unidentifiable.

“I’m leaving.” The finality and coldness in his voice surprised his members, usually the _maknae_ line, especially Vernon, were so polite.

//

Vernon felt so exposed and scared. He didn’t know why he was acting out, well that’s a lie. He knew exactly why he was being rude. He’d always been this way, if he felt threatened or just really upset, he would start being snappy and defensive. It had nothing to do with being a ghoul, he was just a bite-and-run-away type of person, metaphorically of course.

Since joining Seventeen, he never really got too upset, let alone felt threatened, to the point where he’d start feeling like a cornered animal. In his defense, none of the members have ever targeted him for no reason and the unusual exhaustion was really affecting everyone, including himself. He didn’t like feeling so out of control, but he couldn’t help but feel terrified considering the CCG and the general public weren’t exactly in favor of ghouls. He also couldn’t know for sure how his members would react to him getting upset and suddenly going into ‘defensive ghoul mode,’ as he referred to it. There had been too many cases in which a human would report a ghoul to the CCG and then that ghoul would…cease to exist. His mind flashed to an image of his little sister crying about her friend finding out she was a ghoul. A few days later, he apologized on hands and knees at their front porch and told her that everything was alright, but things got ugly from then on out. Next thing Vernon knew, the CCG had located the whereabouts of the ‘rogue ghoul.’ The day they were meant to spend time together at the strip mall quickly turned into a nightmare that would forever haunt him. Vernon spotted them first at the food court which made him immediately hightail it out the mall. Luckily, he and Sofia had their masks in their bags, so the CCG wouldn’t be able to identify them if they were spotted. Not so luckily, one of the agents had seen Sofia right as they were trying to sneak out of the mall. They chased him and Sofia down a deserted walkway and Vernon tried his best, he really did, but there was nothing he could do. They hadn’t seen his face, but they had already seen her face, the ghoul they were looking for was behind the black cat mask. He was weak, he knew that then and he knows that now; no human flesh consumption meant he was weak. He couldn’t save his sister and he ended up broken and running away like the scumbag, man-eating monster he was.

Before joining Pledis, he hated humans after what happened to his beloved kin, but he soon met a nice boy. Vernon couldn’t believe how sweet Kyumin was when he first bumped into him at a corner store. He got to know him (he was so similar to Sofia) and soon decided that maybe following his forgotten dream wouldn’t be so bad. Humans weren’t all that bad, he just had to be careful. (Kyumin never knew what he truly was.)

//

He shook his head, getting rid of those horrid memories for now. Right now the best thing would be to leave, cool down, and apologize to his _hyungs_ privately after recordings were done.

Before he could actually leave the room, Wonwoo blocked the door and put his hands on his shoulder and tried to turn him around. Keyword: **_tried_**. Vernon was so caught off guard that he growled, like actually **_growled_** , like a fucking dog. Eyes turning black and red, barring his teeth, and bringing out his swirling-aqua-green _kagune_ , Vernon was ready to devour.

At least, that’s what Vernon thought his members saw. If anything Vernon looked more like a terrified child than an intimidating man-eating monster. His members sat there speechless while Vernon stumbled and tucked himself into the corner of the room, wrapping himself in his _kagune_ and essentially blocking out the rest of the world. The members could see his body trembling, “D-Don’t tou-touch me!” At that moment, Mingyu swung open the studio door which just so happened to be right next to where Vernon was trying to make himself disappear. Upon laying his eyes on his _dongsaeng_ , Mingyu swore loudly and tried to softly call out to Vernon.

Jihoon soon popped his head out from around Mingyu when he noticed he was still in the doorway looking tense. His eyes widened and he pushed Mingyu into the waiting room and shut the studio door behind himself. Now all the members were just staring at their fellow member and second youngest while their hearts broke at the sight.

“Please, ple-please, I won’t hurt you, so don’t hurt m-me,” Vernon whimpered while choking back sobs. He was so scared to look at his members; he didn’t want to hurt them, but if they hated him and tried to do something, well…he had to survive.

—

“You’re so cute~” Mingi squealed and mushed San’s cheeks together which caused his lips to pucker like a fish. “Hey! That hurts, dummy!” San fell to the ground dramatically, obviously feigning pain. “San- _ie hyung_ , when are we going to-“ Mingi couldn’t finish his sentence before San cut him off abruptly as he climbed back onto the couch. San already knew what Mingi was going to say, had been bothering him about it for months now.

That night in the alley several months back brought them closer together when they both realized they were the same. Over the past few months, they’ve made friends with a few other ghoul idols at music shows.

//

Ghouls, due to their heightened senses, could smell each other, but due to an uprise in CCG activity and brainwashed ghouls working for them over the last few years, ghouls had to take extra precautions to not be noticed. Ghouls in hiding would usually take scent blockers created by an underground ghoul market of sorts. From time to time, some ghoul idols would throw caution out the window the day of a music show or event. After taking scent blockers for a long period of time, once you go a day without taking a dose, a ghoul’s scent shows through very faintly. This would usually allow other ghoul idols to identify each other. This allowed for those ghouls to make friends, ones that would understand and have each other’s backs. This method was obviously kept under wraps very tightly, if the scent blockers or ghoul idols were ever exposed then that’d be the end.

Mingi and him had agreed a few months back to try it out and so they were able to befriend ONEUS’ Hwanwoong and Seventeen’s Vernon. It miraculously went over smoothly. (San had doubts that it would actually work and that they’d get caught, but Mingi had convinced San to blow off the blockers for the event. San agreed because he was totally not whipped for his fellow band member.)

//

“You know it’s not a good idea, Mingi- _ah_. We’ve talked about this… you can’t know how they’re going to rea-“ Now it was Mingi’s turn to cut off his _hyung_. “BUT! but…but what if everything will be okay? I want to be comfortable a-and-“ Mingi broke off into soft cries as San gave a sad sigh and pulled Mingi forward to hug him tightly. Mingi had been through a lot, but his innocent, trusting nature never went away. That was a dangerous characteristic in a ghoul.

A few moments passed before his phone began to buzz incessantly. San reached over to the coffee table and answered without really looking at the caller ID.

“San- _ie,_ please…”

—

Vernon’s tentacle-shaped _kagune_ had retracted but his eyes were still black and red. He was still trembling in the corner with his eyes trained on his members for any sudden movements. His members held their breath and looked on as Vernon pulled out his phone and with dazed eyes and shaky hands as they fumbled to do something on his screen.

“San- _ie_ , please~ I need you, ple-please I’m sorry I-“ he broke off into hysterical sobs and they could faintly hear someone panicking on the other side of the call. “Studio,” Vernon choked out, presumably after being asked where he was by whoever it was that he had called.

The silence was filled with the beeping of the phone signaling the end of the call. Watery black sclera and red irises stared back at them and they couldn’t help but feel awful for their second youngest member. They didn’t dare go closer though, in fear of the backlash they would face if Vernon got spooked once again. Talking to him wasn’t much of an option either seeing as he’s gone off into his own world in his panicked state.

—

San was panicking and Mingi was still asking him what happened, but he didn’t have **_time_** to be answering questions. He needed to get to Vernon and if Mingi wanted to tag along, he’d have to stop questioning and start putting his goddamn shoes and a medical mask on. As much as San wanted to just run out the door, he couldn’t risk fans noticing them out on the streets, they would only get mobbed and he would never get to Vernon then. San was already adorning a black baseball cap and a black fabric face mask when he looked over at Mingi who was still staring at him in confusion.

“Mingi- _yah_ , please just be quiet and hurry up!” Mingi quickly complied and chased after San who haul-assed down the stairwell of their dorm and hailed a cab.

“What’s going on, _hyung_?”

“Vernon. He was crying… I-“ San was so worried and he couldn’t really form coherent sentences at the moment. Mingi suddenly grabbed his face and turned it towards himself and put their foreheads together. “ _Hyung_ , it’ll be okay.”

—

The cab pulled away as San scrambled to dart his way around the back alley of Pledis to hopefully find an entrance into said building. “ _Hyung-ie_ , look!” Mingi quietly alerted him. San turned to see a pile of wooden crates blocking, what seemed like, an unused door. **_Bingo!_**

“Argh! San- _hyung_!” Mingi helped San off the ground where he landed after using his _kagune_ to gently pry open the door. Said door was rusty and old and gave way much easier than San expected. He hastily shut the door again (in case of _sasaengs_ wanting to sneak in) and bounded his way down an unlit hallway towards a light coming from a doorway at the end of it. Mingi hot on his tail, ran behind him and up the lit staircase to the fifth floor. Vernon had told them a while back that walking to the cafeteria from the studio on the fifth floor was exhausting and that Pledis needed to invest in an elevator. He was somewhere on the fifth floor.

—

He could **_smell_** him.

Mingi stopped dead in his tracks and looked on as his precious _hyung_ made it outside the door where his other distressed _hyung_ was in. Mingi could smell him from where he was and that wasn’t good because Vernon almost always took his scent blockers, so he must’ve been terrified enough to secrete a scent powerful enough to fuse through it.

Mingi couldn’t move though. **_Move! Move dammit!_** All his memories came racing back to him. He was 8 years old, in his bedroom painted with cute cartoon dinosaurs while he played with legos. The first crash had caused him to run to his bedroom door to try and see what happened but found it locked. Tears streamed down his face as he heard the bloodcurdling screams of his whole family. He had to do something, but all he could do was play with some stupid toys in order to try and block out what was happening. He couldn’t move, his momma had come into his room earlier that morning telling him to not move. When he had asked why, she just teared up, hugged him, and once again told him to not leave his room. “Mingi! Stay there!” He heard his older brother yell.

It felt like years before everything got quiet and he built the courage to leave his room by breaking it down with his _kagune_. The sight that met him was one that made him drop to his knees and throw up stomach acid.

When he was 11 years old, Mingi wanted to end it all, but something changed. He visited a coffee shop where he met his savior.

//

He heard a yell that sounded like it was from San and crying from Vernon. He shook himself out of his dazed state and stumbled down the rest of the hallway into the studio. There he saw his _hyungs_ softly conversing with one another and so Mingi made his way over, quickly falling to his knees next to Vernon. San turned to look at the other members of Seventeen with black and red eyes that screamed to stay away, dared them to take a step closer. Mingi fussed over Vernon while San stood his ground, protecting his _hyung_ and _dongsaeng_.

Something brushed passed San which made him look away from his death stare with the rest of the occupants of the room and made him widen his eyes in worry and shock. San had never seen Mingi stand his ground like this. “You won’t say anything, will you?” Mingi quietly asked the Seventeen members who stood there dumbfounded by the new arrivals. He stepped closer to the members which frightened them and made them take a step back. “You won’t report him to the CCG, right? If you want to report anyone, then…report me.” Mingi declared louder than his previous statement. “No! No, we don’t want to report anyone!” San’s eyes narrowed and Mingi’s face went blank. “We swear!” Seokmin reinforced Seungcheol’s statement. Mingi hummed softly and turned away to grab ahold of Vernon who hugged him back and stared at his _hyungs_ warily. “I don’t want to threaten you guys, you’re my _sunbaes_ , but I also can’t allow you to hurt my _hyung,_ ” San sighed annoyedly while walking closer to the other half of the room. San looked back to see Mingi and Vernon nestled together in the corner and whispering softly in each other’s ears. A small smile played on his lips at the sight, but a cough from in front of him drew his eyes to Jeonghan.

“Look, I know you two mean well, but we promise we won’t say anything to anyone. We just want to know if Vernon is okay. He freaked out pretty bad on us and-“ Minghao was cut off by San, “And whose fault would that be?” Everyone looked down except for Joshua who held a guilty expression on his face. “What did you do?” San coldly interrogated which caused Joshua to throw his hands up in surrender. “We’re all tired from dance practice. He started laughing while looking at some of us and I just snapped at him, told him to stop being rude and…” Joshua trailed off. “And.” San said sharply. “Some of us kind of just ganged up on him about his rude behavior and he tried to leave, but Wonwoo stopped him and he freaked out about being touched and- I don’t know! I don’t know why he’s acting like we’re going to hurt him… I-“ Joshua panted from his long-winded rant and had to sit down with some guidance from Seungkwan who was right beside him. “Tch. Right, of course,” San replied, clicking his tongue which garnered an irritated glare from Dino who had taken a seat next to his distressed _hyung_.

“I don’t expect you to understand, but ghouls go through a lot and I mean a. lot. I’m not at liberty to tell you what Sol _hyung-ie_ has been through, but I can tell you this….” San took a deep breath. “My best friend, I had known her since we were in grade school, I though it’d be cool to show her my _kagune_. I was a dumb middle-schooler wanting to have fun after all.” San gave a small smile while sighing sadly. “She got scared, cried, and told her mom, then CCG was after me for **_trying to eat a child_**. My father scolded me for showing a human that I was a ghoul and he sent me to Seoul where I had to live and grow up with my grandmother. The CCG eventually gave up on trying to locate me after months because they didn’t know where I was hiding. My family in _Gyeongsan_ wasn’t so lucky.”

San finished reminiscing and looked up to see the other boys with screwed up faces. He noted that the more sensitive members had glassy eyes as if they were about to cry. “My story isn’t that bad, I didn’t witness their deaths, some people have it worse,” he looks back to see Mingi had fallen asleep in Vernon’s arms while Vernon stared at the carpet in front of him.

“I’m sorry that happened to you, but we swear we would never try to hurt Vernon. I can at least speak for myself when I say that I love Vernon like my own biological little brother and want to protect him,” Mingyu stated firmly which got a chorus of agreeing hums from the other members.

By now, San’s eyes had gone back to normal and he had sat down on one of the sofas near where the Seventeen boys were standing, still tense. “It’s okay, you can check on Vernon, he smells like he’s fine now.” The hip-hop unit members wasted no time in closing in on where Vernon was still sat cradling his giant _dongsaeng_ in his arms. “I don’t really know much about ghouls, I can imagine the same goes for the other members, would it be okay to ask you some questions? I just want to make sure we can properly take care of him, y’know?” Jeonghan fell onto the seat next to him as some of the other members went to make sure Vernon was okay.

San trailed his eyes over his boys’ faces. Mingi and Vernon (and Hwanwoong even though he wasn’t present at the moment) were **_his_** dammit and he didn’t want anything to ever hurt them. San thought back to the time he met Vernon at one of the music shows they had attended for their fourth comeback. Vernon was a nervous wreck, he could tell due to his scent, which only served to egg Mingi on about acquainting said boy. After introducing themselves to their senior, they found out that his nerves were because he purposefully hadn’t taken his scent blockers in order to find some ghoul friends and he was scared to get caught by any spies working for the CCG. Soon after their encounter at the music show, Mingi set up an outing of sorts for all of them, including Hwanwoong who they had met at another music show, to his favorite coffee shop. That was a few months back and only some months after Mingi had seen him in the practice room, but San had always felt protective of what was his. Vernon, although older, was a weaker ghoul due to his poor diet and goody-two-shoes nature which caused him to suffer greatly in some cases from lack of nutrients because he refused to hunt or accept donations. Hwanwoong was older as well, but San was protective of him for reasons that can be explained some other time. Mingi was younger and a softy, so that was just a given.

San turned his gaze back to stare directly at the leader of the group, Seungcheol, who sat across from them, “Sure. What do you guys want to know?” San’s eyes gleamed with an intense protective look as he answered their questions.

—

The day’s sun was warm on his skin and the sky was a crystal blue with white fluffy clouds spotting it. Vernon strolled along the path and enjoyed the early morning breeze which felt gentle and cool against his shorts-clad legs. It felt nice being able to be himself. Sure, maybe, the whole ghoul thing couldn’t leave their circle for fear of media backlash, but Vernon was content.

He had San and Mingi to thank if he was being honest. Vernon doesn’t know where he’d be if he hadn’t made friends with those two.

“What are you thinking about, Non- _ie_?” Vernon smiled at his companion walking alongside him.

“Just…we’re not so different, are we?” Vernon replied to his _hyung_. He was glad that he could spend time with Joshua without the fear of hiding himself away from him. He could talk freely and smile genuinely now with his fellow English-speaking buddy.

Joshua looked down at the dirt path they were walking to meet the other Seventeen members at the secluded campsite they rented during their break. The thick brush of trees and fauna lining the path on either side began to open up to the campsite as the two American-born boys made their way to the smiling and laughing figures in the distance. Joshua looked up and gave a small but genuine smile to his precious _dongsaeng_. “No, we’re not so different.”

**Author's Note:**

> I hope this was to your liking! If you could leave any constructive criticism in the comments below, that would be much appreciated! Any love and support are welcome as well!


End file.
